Chancellor's Office

Whitney I. Yamamura began as Chancellor of the Coast Community College District in September of 2022. Under his leadership Coast sponsored the passage of AB 1173 in 2023. This law requires high schools to give access to community college outreach specialists when CSU and UC representatives have access.  In 2024, Coast was a major supporter of AB 1805 which requires Mendez v. Westminster, the landmark case that desegregated California schools seven years before  Brown v. Board of Education, to be taught in schools. Whitney provided leadership and focused resources for Coastline College to become the first public institution in California to offer a Direct Assessment Competency Based Education degree (Associates of Science in Management). With his support, Coast has assumed leadership of the Common Cloud Digital Platform demonstration project to streamline data, reduce staff time and support student success across the state.  Whitney serves as the president of the California Community College Asian American Pacific Islander Trustees and Administrators, and as a board member of the California Asian Chamber of Commerce and the National Asian Pacific Islander Council of the American Association of Community Colleges.

Whitney served as the third president of Folsom Lake College (FLC) in the Los Rios Community College District (LRCCD) from July 2017 to August 2022. He was instrumental in expanding the Rancho Cordova Promise for students in their second year and adding veterans. His connections led to FLC becoming one of the first group of 18 community colleges in the nation to partner with Intel in creating an Artificial Intelligence program. He pushed to expand service to incarcerated students at Folsom and Mule Creek prisons enrolling over 900 students. He was named Folsom Chamber of Commerce Educator of the Year in 2020 and was co-recipient of the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education (APAHE) Annual Award in 2018.

From 1989 to 2022, Whitney had served most every academic level at a college within LRCCD. He was interim president at Sacramento City College and Cosumnes River College (CRC). He served as Vice President of Instruction and Accreditation Liaison Officer at CRC for 8 years. Prior to being vice president, Whitney was the founding dean at American River College’s (ARC) Natomas Center and served as Dean of Behavioral & Social Sciences for six years. He served as a tenured Professor of Economics at ARC for eight years, co-creating two courses, Personal Finance, and International Political Economy. 

Whitney is a fourth-generation Japanese-American and Californian. He is the grandson and great-grandson of farmers and farmworkers. His father’s family was interned at Tule Lake and his mother’s family was interned in Arkansas during WWII. Whitney has deep roots in education, his father Sam taught in K-12 for over 30 years and has a library in the Elk Grove Unified School District named in his honor. 

Whitney has earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, finance concentration, and a Master’s of Arts in Economics both from CSU Sacramento and earned a doctorate in Educational Leadership from UC Davis.